There's Always an Opening
by thescabbedwings
Summary: Based before Pitch Black, when Riddick escapes from prison. Rated PG for brief language and violence. R


Author's Note: I realize that some information (the prison name, for example) might be inaccurate. As a disclaimer I don't own the concept of Richard Riddick or any other ideas given by the movies Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick; those belong solely to David Twohy.

â¢â¢â¢×

Butcher Bay was one of the last hospitable prisons with a maximum security ranking. It was a giant steel cage with a door that only led one way to the prisoners locked there – in. Those who guarded the inmates were nearly as bad of criminals as the hundreds locked in that metal box. There was one resident, though, that nobody could quite figure out.

This was Richard B. Riddick. He was known undisputedly as the most dangerous man in the universe. The man had killed countless people with no rhyme or reason to his brutally systematic murders. When he finally was subdued and sent to Butcher Bay, Riddick had the single largest price on his head in the history of bounty hunting.

Riddick sat brooding in the far corner of his pristine cell, head down and eyes closed behind the heavily tinted goggles that he wore constantly in daylight. He'd lost track of how long he'd been shut up in this indestructible box, calmly ignoring the idiocy of the guards assigned to constant surveillance outside the 3-inch steel slab of his door. The way he acted in contemplation did not – could not – fit with the psychotic murderer that most had come to know and abhor. Truthfully, it was useless to flail madly at the reinforced steel and cement walls of his prison, and no one knew enough about him to think that he might be smarter than a rabid bear. Riddick was an escape artist by nature, cheating death ever since birth when he was found in a dumpster with an umbilical cord wrapped tightly around his neck. Still, they didn't realize what fury they fed with every passing day.

â¢â¢â¢×

Jefferson meandered carelessly into the cramped and thankfully unoccupied break room, pouring cheap, prison-issue coffee into a dented tin cup that took but a few seconds to heat up and burn his hand. He quickly set it down and looked out into the sparsely populated hallway. Lights shone dimly beneath the metal grate flooring, illuminating steel support beams that strained but miraculously never broke against the weight of the complex above. The security guard couldn't be sure whether it was night and day now, as the entire prison had been built without windows to eliminate one of several possible escape routes an inmate could take. It was hardly necessary. Nobody had attempted to run for as long as he could remember working in this cesspool of a penitentiary, and he doubted anyone ever had without being shot down first.

A second security guard muscled into the pitifully-sized room without so much as a glance toward his peer. Jefferson immediately recognized the man as Sanders, who had been assigned the same watch that shift. They shared the task of guarding the door of the biggest prize any prison could receive, and perhaps the most dangerous as well, the notorious serial killer Richard B. Riddick.

"How is it?" Jefferson inquired, hoping to spark a conversation that was slightly more interesting than keeping tabs on a supposed psychopath that spent most of his time staring at the floor.

Sanders thought for a moment as he dug in the barely-functioning refrigerator for something to eat that hadn't spoiled already. Damn administration, short-changing their workers again. "Quiet. Just like the last two months we've been watching this guy." The guard snorted, abandoning his search for an edible morsel and settling on a cup of water. "I don't get it. Isn't he supposed to be some sort of dangerous convict?"

Jefferson nodded slowly, wrapping a napkin around the tin handle of his cup before raising it to gingerly take a sip. "I know what you mean. He's brain dead if you ask me; it's just not possible for someone to do what they say he's done and come out sane." The officer chuckled into his cup, swallowed, and set it down again. "Why are they so concerned that he's going to try to escape? He hasn't even moved for days except to piss and eat."

Sanders shrugged and opened his mouth to reply, but before he could the sound of metal giving way and panicked shouts from somewhere down the hall interrupted his thoughts and immediately sent both guards into the hallway as one. "It's him," he breathed, "It's Riddick. It has to be." The alarm sounded out its wailing alert and below their feet the white lights switched off, plunging them into a second's darkness before the red emergency lights clicked on and began flashing once every couple of seconds.

Both of the guards sprinted down the corridor, their heavy boots clanking eerily on the steel even though the entire lower level reverberated with shouted orders and racing security guards. When they reached Riddick's cell, they found the door ajar, its hinges swinging free from the wall. Jefferson glanced inside to find the inner locking mechanism, supposedly tamper proof, reduced to a tangled mass of cut and rerouted wires with the front panel dangling beneath like a sick bat.

"The son of a bitch figured out the lock and kicked the door in," Jefferson hissed through gritted teeth shortly after as they navigated the halls, sweeping every unlocked room on the bottom level with their flashlights in a quick spot check.

Perching calmly above his own cell door, perfectly balanced on the steel supports across the ceiling, Richard B. Riddick watched as each group of security officials filed by at a trot and smiled. From years of experience in his line of work, the killer had picked up a few things, one of which was that people rarely ever look up. He glanced down the length of the corridor, waiting for the opportunity to pick off a lone guard and relieve him of his weapon. Sure enough, a smallish, obviously newly-recruited security guard limped doggedly by, breathing heavily, and Riddick took his chance.

The man unhurriedly pushed off from the support beam, aiming his trajectory and landing squarely on top of the guard's shoulders and making him crumple, instantly unconscious, to the ground with a gasp of surprise. Riddick located the guard's shiv, a spare weapon they used only in extreme situations, and began loping leisurely toward where he knew the hangar – and his ride out of here – was located.

â¢â¢â¢×

Sanders put out a hand to stop Jefferson, doubling over in a vain attempt to catch his breath. "He's not here. He just..." The guard swallowed hard. "...vanished!"

"What are you talking about? That psycho freak is twice your size. He can't just disappear and you know it! Get your ass moving, Sanders!" With that, Jefferson continued searching the rooms, more apprehensive this time, as his associate waved a weak hand in a motion that suggested 'go on'. He was just too tired. The guards at Butcher Bay only got paid minimum wage anyway, forget any bonuses for finding and stopping a runaway.

The steel grate upon which he stood sang a tuneless note, signaling the approach of someone who appeared to be doing their job. Sanders gathered himself up and moved sideways, pressing his right shoulder against the wall and turning his head to watch just in time to see the sinewy mass of Riddick, a shiv grasped tightly in his closed fist, hurtling toward him with a look of dire hatred creasing his face. The guard screamed as Riddick's blade found purchase in the flesh of his lower back and sliced diagonally upward, severing his abdominal aorta and spinal cord and instantly paralyzing him. Sanders' vision blurred and his voice faded to a distant gurgle before he fell in a crumpled heap on the floor, watching the killer's frenzied progress through glazed, unseeing eyes.

Jefferson, a coward at heart, had fled as fast as his panic-stricken legs could carry him when he saw Riddick barreling toward them. Now he was haphazardly shoving security guards that were just as afraid as him into the murderer's path. Nothing mattered now except getting to the hangar bay and flying away from this doomed rock. Ironic, isn't it, how a beast as fearless as Riddick and a cowardly security guard could be joined in such a thought as both fought for their lives in dissimilar ways.

As Riddick passed each unfortunate guard, more and more blood painted the walls and every one of them slumped to the floor with their bodies cleaved open like gutted fish. His shielded eyes were intent upon following the runaway guard, whom he knew would be careening straight for the hangar bay. As long as he kept the guard he'd overheard being called Jefferson in sight, Riddick could kill the man later and check himself out of Butcher Bay for good.

â¢â¢â¢×

Riddick jumped up into the rafters just as Jefferson cast a worried glance over his shoulder. The security guard had just entered the vast open space of the hangar bay and, seeing that the killer had disappeared entirely, he was both comforted and deeply concerned. Regardless, the man continued making his way to the nearest prison transport ship at a quickly tiring pace. The other officials around him looked to one another for a clue as to where Riddick might have gone, but none of them knew, and all the possible solutions had been drowned in the carnage strewn in the corridor in the killer's wake.

Jefferson's mind raced as he reached the ramp leading up to the dark, silent safety of the transport ship. It was only a short walk to freedom, with nobody – not even that bastard Riddick – to stand in his way. Behind him he heard a small clot of six guards standing in the entryway to the hangar, waiting apprehensively with their guns drawn for the psychopath to make his move. What they didn't expect, though, was the speed and effectiveness with which he came.

Right before Jefferson's eyes Riddick leapt from the ceiling supports above them, crushing two beneath him, tripping one more and disemboweling the final three with one expert sweep of his acquired blade. He dispatched the survivor with a simple thrust deep into his chest, pulling the shiv free and sprinting tirelessly toward the open prison transport that Jefferson was now scrambling, terrified, into.

The security guard shakily strapped himself into the pilot's seat, powering up the transport and immediately pounding the button to close the hatch. He heard the ship seal itself and listened for a moment, but undisturbed silence ensued. Obviously, Riddick had been shot down before ever reaching the transport ship. Jefferson took a moment to relax, feeling his nerves unwind in the comforting darkness of the ship. Through the open front window he could see the other guards running around, some of which shouting at him with fearful looks on their faces. But he knew they were just scared, because he was abandoning them with the deranged beast that was Riddick. With a newly restored air of confidence, Jefferson waved to them and beamed, "Goodbye and good riddance!"

He maneuvered the transport ship onto the runway, amusedly watching his peers trying to catch his attention through the sound-proof hull. The guard laughed in their faces, a triumphant laugh that echoed off the quiet machinery and, oddly, was joined by a more sinister chuckle that startled Jefferson into silence. A cold, gravelly voice cut the silence and stung Jefferson more effectively than any weapon, forcing him to visibly flinch as Riddick stepped up on his left side and looked out the window. "You didn't think you would win that easily, did you?"

The killer's right hand shot out, embedding the shiv deep in his chest before he could realize what happened. With practiced nonchalance Riddick relieved him of his weapons and shoved his limp carcass onto the floor beside the pilot's chair. Miraculously, the hangar bay doors were still wide open and it was but the work of a moment before he had programmed the autopilot to launch. The prison transport gathered speed as Riddick punched the hatch release and dragged Jefferson's corpse to the opening, where the ramp skidded on the pavement and sent out a shower of sparks. The murderer merely tossed the body out onto the runway, walked back to the cockpit, and closed the hatch just before the transport lurched clumsily into the sky.


End file.
